Shadow Tyrants

EIGHT

The flight from Dyess Air Force Base in Texas had been a long one, with two in-air refueling hookups on the way. Major Jay Petkunas was looking forward to putting his B-1B Lancer bomber on the ground. Camp Thunder Cove, the secluded island’s Air Force and Navy base, was considered one of the best postings in the military because of its tropical climate, but eight hours of rack time sounded better than spending some fun in the sun.

As he set the bomber’s swing wings to their widest position for landing, he looked out the side window at the U-shaped coral atoll. The thin strip of land around Diego Garcia’s central lagoon covered just twelve square miles. A dozen Navy ships were anchored in the protected harbor, and the rest of the bombers from his squadron were already lined up along one side of the twelve-thousand-foot runway, facing an array of cargo planes and refueling tankers in front of them.

His copilot, Captain Hank Larsson, who was currently flying the plane, futilely craned his neck to see the view and said, “How do the beaches look?” This was Petkunas’s third trip to the island but Larsson’s first.

“You’re not tired?”

“I can sleep on the sand. I have to work on my tan.”

Petkunas, who was dark-haired with an olive complexion, gave his pale blond copilot a skeptical look. “Good luck with that. You better hope they have a huge supply of aloe for when you fry that translucent Swedish skin of yours.”

“I have sunblock to keep me from burning.”

“Is your sunblock rated for nuclear radiation? Because that’s what you need.” The two combat systems officers behind them laughed. Petkunas radioed the control tower. “Thunder Cove tower, this is Bats 12 requesting clearance to land. We have a vampire here who wants to experience what sunlight will do to him.”

“Bats 12,” a woman’s voice said, “the runway is yours. We’ve got plenty of sun to—”

Her voice cut out abruptly. At the same time, all of the bomber’s instrument panels went dark. The engines flamed out, enveloping the cockpit in an eerie silence.

The joking attitude instantly disappeared, and the crew flipped back to the professionals they were.

Petkunas calmly took hold of the control stick and said, “I have the plane.”

Larsson let go of his own stick and replied, “You have the plane.”

“Anything working?”

“We’ve got a complete power failure.” The men behind Petkunas reported the same.

Petkunas tried calling the tower, “Thunder Cove, this is Bats 12. We’re declaring an aircraft emergency. I repeat, we’re declaring an aircraft emergency.”

No response. Not even static.

“Let’s get the engines restarted,” Petkunas said as the unpowered B-1B glided toward the ocean.

They raced through the checklist, but it was useless. It seemed like the entire computer control system had short-circuited.

“Isn’t anything working?” Larsson asked in frustration.

Petkunas moved the stick to one side, and the bomber sluggishly tilted in response.

“Hydraulics are intact,” Petkunas said. “Barely.”

“Without the electronics, we can’t put the gear down.”

Petkunas knew what he was saying. Even if they could get the huge bomber turned and lined up on the runway, they’d have to make a belly landing.

It was too risky. If he didn’t handle it just right, they could cartwheel down the runway, killing all four of them.

Petkunas made a snap decision.

“Prepare to eject,” he announced. They were close enough to the island to expect a quick rescue.

“Ready!” the three other crew members called out in succession.

The ejection system on the B-1B could be operated solely by the pilot or by each individual crew member. When the pilot pulled the ejection handle on the side of the seat, the canopy would blow off, then each seat’s rockets would fire in a prearranged sequence so that they didn’t hit each other when they were shot through the roof.

Petkunas steeled himself for the extreme force of the ejection and yelled, “Eject! Eject! Eject!” Then he pulled the handle.

Nothing happened.

He tried again with the same result.

“My seat isn’t working,” he told the others. “You’ll have to eject yourselves… Eject! Eject! Eject!”

They did as ordered. Still nothing. Even the canopy stayed in place.

Larsson stared at him in profound confusion. “What is going on? We got gremlins in here?”

Petkunas couldn’t explain it until he realized that each seat had a computer-controlled sequencer that precisely determined in what order they should be ejected milliseconds after the handle was pulled. He didn’t know how, but something had gone wrong with every piece of electronics on the plane.

Another snap decision.

“We’re landing,” Petkunas said, putting his hand back on the stick. “Let’s hope nobody decides to wander out onto the runway.”

He didn’t bother calling the tower. If the electrical problem was so complete that the seats wouldn’t eject, then the radio would be disabled as well.

“Coming around,” Petkunas said as he wrestled to bank the bomber. It fought him every inch of the way, but he was able to put the B-1B into a turn. He kept at it with all his strength until the runway was straight ahead of them. He leveled off and dropped the nose.

“Altitude is low,” Larsson said.

“Can’t help that,” Petkunas replied. “We need the speed or we’ll stall before we get to the island. Try lowering the flaps ten degrees.”

Larsson moved the handle, then shook his head. “No good.”

“I guess we’ll have to do this the hard way.”

The artificial horizon and altimeter still worked since they were mechanical, but the fancy electronic displays were black, so Petkunas would have to do this by eyesight and feel along. If this had happened at night or in bad weather, they’d be dead men.

With the engines out, Petkunas would have only one chance to get this right. The runway was approaching fast as Larsson called out their altitude.

“Five hundred feet… Four hundred… Three… Two… One…”

Petkunas pulled back on the stick to flare out and bleed off speed, but he’d waited too long. He felt a jolt when the tail smacked the runway.

The impact pitched the plane forward. The bomber’s belly struck the runway with a teeth-rattling blow, and it continued to slide out of control. Petkunas could do nothing else now except go along for the ride.

The B-1B began to spin, and Petkunas braced himself for the impending somersault that would rip the plane apart. Sparks and smoke flew behind them as the plane scraped across the concrete tarmac, threatening to set fire to the remaining jet fuel if any of the tanks ruptured.

But the spin turned out to be what saved the plane. The bomber skidded into the grassy area next to the runway and kept going until it crossed a sandy beach that slowed them just before it plowed into the ocean. Seawater sprayed across the windscreen as they came to a halt.

Petkunas didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until he took in a huge lungful of air to celebrate not dying.

“Everyone okay?” he asked his crew. All three responded that they were fine.

Normally, they’d exit through the stairway beneath the front landing gear, but that wasn’t possible with a belly landing. And there was still the possibility of a fire.

Petkunas reached up and manually activated the explosive bolts on the canopy, which blew off with a bang.

He waited while each man climbed over the edge and jumped out. Then he followed them and landed in the water with a splash. Soaking wet, he waded out of the water and joined his men next to the plane. He could see now that no fuel was leaking, and the plane looked in remarkably good shape except for its underside.

“Nice work, Major,” Larsson said, clapping him on the shoulder.

Petkunas shook his head. “That’s something I never want to do again. I see a lot of paperwork in our future.”

“Cheer up,” Larsson said with a grin. “At least I’m on the beach.”

Petkunas chuckled. “The fire truck better get here with your sunscreen fast.”

“Yeah, where are those guys?”

Now Petkunas realized that he didn’t hear any sirens of approaching emergency units. But he did see people running toward them.

The first to reach them was one of the ground workers.

“You guys all right?” he huffed without taking his eyes off the destroyed plane.

“We’re fine,” Petkunas said. “Don’t they have fire trucks here?”

“None of them are working right now,” the ground worker said.

“What?” Larsson said, perplexed.

“Then it wasn’t just us?” Petkunas asked.

The Diego Garcia worker shook his head. “All electronic systems went out a few minutes ago while you were in the air. Everything on the island is dead.”